The House of Defence v. 2

by E. F. Benson

She passed into the drawing-room, looking round consciously and narrowly at the pictures and the furniture, warming her hands at the fire, and feeling the cold of the marble chimney-piece to convince herself of the reality and normalness of her sensations. She opened a letter or two, and they also were quite ordinary and commonplace; there was an invitation to dinner, a few replies to invitations of her own, all signed with familiar names. A footman was bringing in tea: he had drawn two high chairs up to the table, and had put a plate and an egg-cup opposite each. Everything except this telegram indicated that the world was going on in its normal manner. She had ordered a boiled egg, as a treat, for the two boys. There were the egg-cups.

The boys? Whose? Hers and Thurso’s.

Then a sudden wave of cynical amusement, coming in from the ocean of the world in which her life was passed, went over her head for a moment. She felt that she was being unreal, melodramatic, in that she suddenly thought of her children like this, of her husband, of forgiveness, of all the stale old properties and stock solutions of difficulties. It was like some preposterous Adelphi piece, and she was the burglar who was suddenly filled with repentance and remorse because he heard the clock strike twelve, as he remembered to have heard it strike on New Year’s night in young and innocent days. As if burglars thought of their childhood when they were engaged in the plate-closet! Or as if people like herself thought of maternal obligations and marriage vows when at last love had really come into their lives! Of course, they forgot everything except that, instead of suddenly remembering all sorts of other things which they had, spontaneously and habitually, forgotten for so long. If all this had been described in a book she read, or acted in a play, she would have thrown the book aside, or have got up from her seat at the play whispering, “How perfectly ridiculous! How absolutely unlike life! I think we won’t stop for the end, as I am sure there is going to be an impossible reconciliation.”

Yet what would have seemed to her so unreal in fiction or drama was now extraordinarily real when it actually happened to occur. She wondered whether the life she had led all these years was as unreal as fiction of this sort or drama of this sort would have seemed to her.

Thurso was cured, so he said. He besought her forgiveness. The children were coming down to tea with her. She expected Villars. There was enough there to occupy her mind for the few minutes that would elapse before the children came.

Poor old Mumbo-Jumbo, that fetish called Morality or Duty, which had been to her but a doll with a veil over its face, was showing signs of life, giving sudden, spasmodic movements, twitching at the veil. What its face was like she had really no idea, for in so many things she had practically been untempted. But all these years she had been kind, she had been generous, she had had the instinct for helping those who suffered. Perhaps the face would not be so very ugly.

The message that the two boys were to come down to tea had not been productive, up above, of any notable rapture. Raynham, aged eleven, had said, “Oh, bother!” and Henry had asked if they would have to stop long. Their mother was a radiant but rather terrifying vision to them. She was usually doing something else, and must not be interrupted. That summed up their knowledge of her.

Catherine remembered a pack of ridiculous cards which had once produced shouts of laughter when the children were playing with their father. They concerned Mr. Bones the butcher, and the families of other portentous and legendary personages. She remembered the day, too, a wet afternoon in July, when they had played with them, and went to a cupboard in the drawing-room where cards were kept, and among other packs discovered these joyous presentments. The children were going to have eggs also with their tea. That was a treat, too.

They came in immediately afterwards, rather shy, and very anxious to “behave.” But insensibly, with the instinct of children, they soon saw that “behaviour” was not required. The radiant vision begged a spoonful of Henry’s egg, and asked Raynham to spare her one corner of the delicious toast he had buttered for himself. He gave her the butteriest corner of all, and Henry parted with precious yolk.

There was news also. Father was away—and some nameless dagger stabbed her as she realised that this was the first they had heard of it—and had been ill. Then there was good news: he was ever so much better, and soon he was coming home, or perhaps mamma was going out to see him—yes, America. Millions of miles off. What ocean? Atlantic, of course. Even Henry knew that.